
Regional and Sectoral Economics Studies Vol. 12-3 (2012) THE INFLUENCE OF TRANSPARENCY OF UNIVERSITY SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY IN THE CREATION OF REPUTATION BARAIBAR DIEZ, Elisa * LUNA SOTORRÍO, Ladislao Abstract The asymmetry of information in the economy is a problem that difficult how to address the contribution and efficacy of the university social responsibility (USR) in the creation of reputation, which is generated not by the social activity of the university but by the transparency of that activity. This study analyzes by a multiple linear regression model the creation of reputation. Due to the absence of a reputational ranking, reputation is measured by the position in Ranking Web of World Universities. USR policy and USR transparency of the 73 Spanish universities are analyzed. Results allow to say that it is not the volume of social activity performed, but the consistency between the elements of communication, as well as the integrity, accuracy and appropriateness of the message which increases the creation of reputation. Then, USR transparency could become a good indicator of university reputation. JEL classification: M14 - Corporate Culture; Social Responsibility / I23 - Higher Education and Research Institutions Keywords: Transparency, University Social Responsibility, Reputation. ------------- 1. Introduction There is a large debate in justifying the adoption by a company of social and environmental actions beyond its economic dimension. This debate is embodied in two perspectives: a positive perspective, represented by the agency theory and the theory of stakeholders, and a normative perspective, represented by the theory of legitimacy. Theories within the positive perspective (Friedman, 1970; Jensen and Meckling, 1976) consider the adoption of such actions from the standpoint of the economic impact for the company. On the other hand, theories within a normative perspective (Gray et al., 1995; Hooghiemstra, 2000; McWilliams and Siegel, 2001; Archel, 2003; Reverte, 2009) consider those actions as ethically necessary, regardless of their economic effect. The theory of stakeholders integrates aspects of both perspectives, normative and positive (Garriga and Mele, 2004). The consideration of these groups of interest when developing social and environmental actions is economically justified because of the importance of their relationship to the survival of the firm (Mitchell et al. 1997; Hillman and Keim, 2001). This divergence of criteria, in addition to the lack of standardization and proliferation of initiatives by understanding social responsibility, difficult its application in the firm. However, despite these drawbacks, an increasing number of companies * Elisa Baraibar Diez: Teaching assistant LOU of Business Administration and PhD candidate. Member of the Research Group “Economic Management for Sustainability of the Primary Sector”. Department of Business Administration. University of Cantabria. e-mail: [email protected]. Address: Department of Business Administration. University of Cantabria. Av. Los Castros, s/n; 39005 (Santander – Cantabria). Ladislao Luna Sotorrío: Professor of Business Administration. Director of the Research Group “Economic Management for Sustainable Development of the Primary Sector”. Department of Business Administration. University of Cantabria. e-mail: [email protected] Regional and Sectoral Economics Studies Vol. 12-3 (2012) incorporate aspects of social responsibility in their strategy (Nieto and Fernandez, 2004). This trend observed in businesses, which reflects the increased interest of society for social responsibility, is transferred to other institutions, especially those that because of their social nature, such as universities, must pay a priority attention to these aspects. So much so, that the concept of university social responsibility (USR) has been recently introduced. In any case, the effectiveness of this social activity, taking into account their voluntary nature and lack of standardization, requires that the organizations and institutions develop certain actions to achieve transparency in the disclosure of information in order to be valuable for stakeholders when making decisions. In this paper, we consider two sides of USR. On the one hand, policies or actions related to USR (social activity) and on the other hand, USR transparency. The aim of this paper is to analyze, in Spanish universities, the influence of USR policy and USR transparency in obtaining reputation. The study analyzes the axes of social activity in universities and the actions oriented to achieve transparency in the disclosure of that activity under two premises. First, we consider the general hypothesis that the greater the social activity in each axis and the greater the transparency, greater the reputation. Second, in the absence of a reputation ranking, quality rankings can be viewed by stakeholders as indicators of reputation. 2. Transparency and university social responsibility Transparency can be defined as the strategy followed by an issuer to disclose complete, accurate and appropriate information, through the best available channel so as to enable recipients the decision making, activating a feedback that allows consolidating the process. The coherence between the different elements of communication (issuer, recipient, channel, code and message)1 is critical when assessing the level of transparency. Thus, the decision to disclose information must be proactive by the issuer and must respond the demands of the recipient, getting to know them and customizing as far as possible the information disclosed. This personalization increases the importance of the channel of communication when assessing transparency. The couple code-message represents the core of transparency, since its importance lies not only in the content to disclose but also in the way to present it, to structure it, its volume and its quality. Thus, the integrity, accuracy and appropriateness of the message (Singhvi and Desai, 1971; Buzby, 1974; Whittred, 1980; Alford et al., 1993; Wallace et al., 1994; Chang et al. 2008) are essential features to ensure transparency. In the social scope of universities, these features are supported by systems of certification, standardization or, among other things, by the adherence to quality programs nationwide. University social responsibility is the path to a sustainable economy that incorporates the values related to social and environmental aspects. It appears as “third mission” in the University Strategy 2015 (EU2015), an initiative to modernize the Spanish university by coordinating the appropriate regional university systems and the development of a modern Spanish University System (SUS). The effectiveness of the USR policy will depend largely on the ability to transmit them to society and to transform them into reputation, so transparency is essential. The first step manual of USR, published by the Interamerican Development Bank, presents, analyzes and promotes a new context of accountability of the university, 1 Based on models of communication proposed by Shannon and Weaver (1949) and Berlo (1960). 22 Baraibar, E., Luna, L. Influence of transparency of university social responsibility in reputation developing tools to diagnose the current situation of the institution in relation to responsibility and facilitate both the compliance with the proposed actions as accountability. In order to analyze the impact of USR in society, four axis of social activity should be differentiated: organization, education, knowledge and society (Vallaeys, 2009). The social policy axes are the following: - Organizational Axis: This field represents the business side of the impacts of the university as an organization and meets the objectives of socially effective and efficient government and administration of resources and implementation of social responsibility criteria in own internal management of university. The pillars of this organizational axis are sustainability and good governance. First is reflected in some strategy of internationally recognized management systems (Global Compact, ISO, EMAS…) as well as internal management systems such as the existence of a system of internal quality assurance (SIQA). Good governance and accountability are reflected in the existence of a code of ethics and in the presence of women in managerial or government areas of the university (deaneries, rectories, vice-rectories). Transparency of this axis is determined by the proactiveness of the issuer (specific section of social responsibility on the website), the proximity to receiver (contact information, visibility of social responsibility section) and the quality of the message, reflected in the normalization of the social responsibility report and the existence of external processes of certification in management systems. - Educational Axis: It meets the objective of promoting university community personal values and socially responsible citizens. The main pillars of educational axis are training and integration, reflected in curricular routes (courses, workshops, master programs) related to social responsibility, ethics and cooperation in the first case or percentage of tuition devoted to minority groups, volunteer programs or fellowship programs in the second case. The transparency of this axis is mainly determined by the proximity to receiver and the quality of the message, reflected in the participation of the university in the programs Audit or Docentia2 of the National Agency for Quality Assessment
Details
-
File Typepdf
-
Upload Time-
-
Content LanguagesEnglish
-
Upload UserAnonymous/Not logged-in
-
File Pages11 Page
-
File Size-